Читать книгу Homeschooling For Dummies - Jennifer Kaufeld - Страница 21

For years socialization always appeared as the homeschooling issue of the year, no matter which year it happened to be. Although you don’t hear it as often as you used to, people still raise this as The Homeschooling Issue. Of course, it’s only an issue among people who don’t actually teach their children at home. The veteran homeschoolers know better.

By the time a homeschool family has a couple years’ experience, its members understand that the best social place for its children is the home environment. Where else can you learn to relate to people from all different age groups, strengths, and weaknesses without resorting to insanity or institutionalization?

Families pass along values, morals, and standards as they interact together. Parents teach their young ones how to interact with society, how to tell right from wrong, and why they should avoid sticking their fingers in light sockets. (Ouch! That one hurt.) In fact, parents do a fine job through about age 5, and then someone else comes along and tells them that they need to send their children to school to learn all that matters.

Take time for a quick trip back to introductory logic. If you did a great job when they were 2, and you were magnificent when they were 4, then why is it that all of a sudden you need help at 6, 8, and 10? That doesn’t make sense. How is someone you don’t even know more qualified to teach your children about society than you are?

You learn about society by living life. Sitting in a classroom for six hours each day while someone tells you to be quiet and listen isn’t living life. Unless you happen to be a professional bank depositor for a large corporation, neither does real life consist of standing silently in a line several times per day.

So if these scenarios aren’t real life in the adult world, why do we insist that our children fit a mold that we ourselves wouldn’t be caught dead in? I don’t know about you, but if I worked in a job where I needed to raise my hand to go to the bathroom and then marched there and back carrying a brightly colored tag that reads Girl Bathroom Pass in large block letters, I think I’d find another position. At home, my children don’t raise their hands for permission to go to the bathroom. Do yours?